Cedric Watson and Corey Ledet: Goin' Down to Louisiana

Cedric Watson and Corey Ledet: Goin' Down to Louisiana

12.00

Two of Louisiana’s most promising young musicians got together in 2006 to record this raw, bluesy, soulful masterpiece for the first Valcour Records release. Cedric Watson and Corey Ledet both play this music the way they feel it, and their deep-rooted, spiritual performances makes it clear the music runs through their veins and they couldn’t separate themselves from it if they tried. Cedric and Corey represent the promise of an incredible future for Louisiana music: Cajun, Zydeco and Creole. This album became a classic the day it hit the shelves.

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Sample Tracks

Tracks

Goin’ Down to Louisiana

Broken Hearted

Ma Negresse

Black Snake

Colinda

Madame Faielle

Valse de Cherokee

Let the Good Times Roll

Canray‘s One Step

Mama Told Papa

Richard Two Step

Hungry Man Blues

“Not long ago, the future of Creole music looked bleak. Bébé Carriére, the great fiddler at the heart of the Lawtell Playboys, passed away. Danny Poulard, too, was gone. The African American French musical traditions of Southwest Louisiana, which underpin so much of what we now like to call “Cajun” and “Zydeco” music, seemed to be rapidly disappearing, lost in the din of the dancehall and the relentless boom of the electric bass. Salvation, though, often comes from strange places. In this case, it came from perhaps the strangest place of all: Texas.

Now residing in Parks, Corey “Lil Pop” Ledet originally hails from Houston, where the old music still runs strong in the families who left rural Louisiana for better work decades ago. Cedric Watson, who now lives in Lafayette, grew up in the rustic environs of Sealy, Texas. The sudden appearance of these two dynamic musicians has been a near religious experience for lovers of Cajun, Creole and Zydeco music. In Lil Pop’s virtuoso piano key accordion playing, they hear echoes Clifton Chenier’s genius. When Cedric Watson breaks into a broad grin as he channels the old songs, they recall Canray Fontenot.

But this music is about more than individual people, and Cedric and Corey are not ghosts of a dead culture. Cedric and Corey look to the past, true, but they do so as a means of creating a meaningful musical present. When you listen to this record, it will be easy to draw comparisons to the musical heroes of the past. Don’t forget, though, to think about these young men in the first strong flowering of their talent, changing and renewing the music every time they pick up an instrument.